If you know me even a bit, you probably either know or could guess that I absolutely adore family dinners. Growing up we used to sit down as a family and eat dinner together every night. At the time I didn't realize how special it was, but looking back, those dinners are such a huge part of who I am today. The talks, the check-ins, the arguments, the lapses when we would all space out in harmonious silence...important things to me to share with people in my everyday life. Last year in New York, Fam Night every once in a while with 3 pieces of my heart from home saved me from falling into depression during the wintertime and made me realize that home really is where the heart is, Sunday morning breakfasts with M and Z every week kept me from dreading Mondays and constantly kept a smile on my face, late-night runs to the taco truck with Savannah whenever I'm home are the best meals and best company in life...the list goes on and on. It is the beginning of week three in Buenos Aires, and already family dinners are a staple in my life and happiness here. A friend who spent the semester here last Spring warned me of the cliquey nature of the program here and cautioned me not to fall into a clique myself. I prefer to call us a family. My roommate, myself, and three of the boys from NYU who live across the street sort of just meshed into a dinner-going group that has evolved into my peace of mind.
That said, let me tell you about the important stuff: the food! I have two favorite restaurants thus far. Las Pizarras is right around the corner from our dorm; las pizarras means the chalkboards in Spanish, and every couple of nights they change the menu and write it on big chalkboards that hang in the restaurant. I've eaten fresh corn ravioli, beet and brie risotto, maracuya (passionfruit) creme brulee, and pear crumble with lemon sorbet there-- not to mention the wine list. My other favorite is a Mexican restaurant called Xalapa, which is a five to ten minute walk from us. Free corn chips and salsa, yummy guacamole and margaritas, and chilaquiles that taste NOTHING like the ones I love at home but are BOMB nonetheless. The last time we went for family dinner there, I'm sure everyone wanted to tape my mouth shut because I wouldn't stop talking about how much the interior reminded me of our breakfastnook at home (pictures of multicolored dried corn on the walls, the same Diego Rivera print we have up, callalilies painted on the deep-yellow walls...).
Classes are in Spanish and I am staying afloat thus far, but it still makes me a little nervous.... It will get better though, I know it will. Despite how much I adore my grupo here, I am speaking too much English and it's frustrating. Tomorrow is my first day traveling about an hour outside of the city to La Juanita (check them out at http://www.helpargentina.org/en/node/1268), where I will be volunteering for the semester, so I anticipate using my Spanish there a lot. The world keeps getting smaller and smaller. Initially I was assigned to a different NGO here who wanted my help with international partnership development and fundraising and databasing work. All stuff that I can handle and am decent at, but not the most engaging, and definitely not a job that would help me get to know this city better. Then I met with the man who pairs up students with orgs, and he basically told me my org didn't need me anymore. Perfect. I started telling him my interests, and he mentioned that he had a place in mind for me. I asked the name, and he told me La Juanita. When I told him that one of my best friends volunteered there, he got super excited, said that they love my friend and he's great, and decided on the spot to send me to work for them. This is not why the world is small.
Two days later, I went to MALBA, a contemporary art museum, to see an Andy Warhol exhibit and to meet up with a friend of a friend. Born and raised in Buenos Aires, she's a very friendly person who I can practice my Spanish with and a community activist here in the city. As she asked me questions about how my time will be spent in her city, I mentioned La Juanita. Of course she used to work with them, and although it has been many years, is very familiar with them and the work they do. And it goes without saying that she knows the other community activist who I met with two days prior to her; he works for an organization called La Base that gives loans to cooperatives in Buenos Aires, half of which are recovered factories. I bought some shoes from one of the coops and spoke with him and learned a ton about recovered factories in Buenos Aires (check out Naomi Klein's documentary "The Take," and my new contact's website www.elcambiosilencioso.com.ar). A new friend here came with me to the La Base office, and though neither one of us is entirely proficient in Spanish, afterwards we spent an hour in a coffeeshop enjoying cafe con leches y medialunas (mini croissants... typical breakfast here is cafe con leche and 3 medialunas) and speaking soley in Spanish.
On a very personal note, I am really trying and learning how to control my triggers. A "trigger" is something that people say or do that triggers you to be upset, to be offended, to lose your cool. Not that I am an angry person, but I have a lot of passion, and I have created such a niche for myself in New York City that I rarely spend long stretches of time around folks that might trigger me. Being here is a good experience for me, because I am realizing that my reactions are not always the most productive. I know that blowing up or shutting someone down for making an ignorant comment will either scare them away from ever broaching the subject again, or will make them hate me, or will cause them to get defensive and refuse to listen to what I have to say, or all of the above. Still, there have been moments (to my shame, I must admit) on the trip already when I have been triggered, and probably not responded in the most productive way. You live and you learn. Correction: I live and I learn. Along with productively handling my triggers is a renewed commitment to "I" statements. :)
Sending y'all some South American love,
L
P.S. Desiree and I just booked boat tickets and hostel beds for this weekend... we're heading to Punta del Este, Uruguay to soak up the sun at the last weekend on the beach before most people return to work after summer break!
P.P.S. So many run-on sentences! Apologies if they bother you. I've got a thing for commas and not pausing for breath until I have spoken my piece. Besos!
Monday, February 22, 2010
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Traduttore, Traditore (Translator, Traitor)
Hola from Buenos Aires!! Read this with a mug of tea or coffee and ten minutes to spare, because it's a little lengthy. As usual, I've got too much to say.
Happy Valentine's Day--or el dia de los enamorados! It hasn't felt like Valentine's Day here to me much, which is nice, because in the past I have always been acutely aware of this day, and usually in a negative way. Today, instead of going out with my girlfriends and talking about how much we love each other and how maybe next year we'll be with someone on Valentine's Day, a small group of us went to Buenos Aires's Chinatown/Barrio Chino for the Chinese New Year celebrations. It turned out to be much smaller than we thought and pretty anticlimactic because we couldn't even eat at a Chinese restaurant because the lines were atrocious. But the sun was out, the wind was blowing, and despite my hunger and semi-bitchiness due to the hunger, I felt totally happy. We left Chinatown and headed to Palermo (the neighborhood I live in) for a late lunch and browsing through the outdoor market.
Let me back up a minute: Tonight marks one week since I boarded a plane for Buenos Aires from New York. I left the snow behind and landed in 88 degrees (sorry to all my NYC amigos reading this... I know gloating is mean!). After a long day of waiting around in the NYU academic center, getting fed, mingling with other NYU students, and checking in, we were bussed to our dorm. The pictures online of my residence hall look teeny tiny, and I had been told that Master (the dorm I live in) has bite-sized rooms, so you can imagine my shock when I walked into a room with floor to ceiling windows that open onto a balcony overlooking the corner of calles Paraguay and Uriarte. Perfect post-up spot for people-watching! My roommate is wonderful, which I already knew she would be; we have tons and tons of mutual friends in New York and it's a mystery to me how we haven't been friends til now. We have super high ceilings because we're on the top floor, our own bathroom, and plentiful closet space. The dorm has two parts, and across the street is where most of the boys in Master live and the cafeteria where a few of the nicest women I've met here work is across the street as well.
Everybody told me how white people from Buenos Aires are, but I am still in shock by just how white this city is. Not for the whiteness reason but not unrelated, this city feels like an American city, only everyone speaks Spanish instead of English. I'm learning how intensely impacted my experience as a tourist and learner is based on my perceived origins. My perception of a country like Nicaragua, for example, can never be the same as my perception of a country like Argentina, for the simple fact that I am able to blend in here, where there I can not. Being a noticeable foreigner inevitably alters the dynamics around me, sends ripples through a coffeeshop, alters the way that people speak (or choose not to speak) to me. Once I open my mouth all that goes out the door, of course, but being physically able to "pass" as a native here is definitely feeding into my perceptions of the city. (I love it so far.)
A professor here gave a lecture about a Cortazar short story during our orientation, and she quoted an old Scandinavian saying: "Once you cross the ocean, you're never on the right side." I loved it. I immediately wrote it down, as it fits right into my obsession and tenuous relationship with wanderlust. She spoke of codes and reading and understanding the code of the new space and having to start translating yourself at the same time. I keep thinking about how Sr. Puente, my middle school Spanish teacher, thinks that people take on different personalities/characters in each language they speak. If I'm different, I like to think it's only because of lack of ability to sufficiently express my usual personality. Like the other night, I asked the boys from NYU some question about "Do you ever wonder if/about..." and realized I ask questions like that all the time... but not in Spanish. That's not in my Spanish comfort zone yet, and so that piece of myself falls away when I turn to Spanish. Then again, aren't we supposed to be 80% speakers of body language? I like to think that my true self comes through, despite language barriers.
I wrote the above paragraph as I heard her speak. I carry my journal with me everywhere because I never know when something will inspire me to write. As I finished the paragraph, she spoke of the popular phrase "tradutorre, traditore," or "translator, traitor." I must pay attention to making sure that I don't betray myself in the process of translating myself.
Friday we went to Tigre, a delta river area about an hour from Buenos Aires proper. Of course my journal was in tow, and here are my thoughts from the busride home:
Nothing is ever so simple. Or isn't it? I'm sitting on a bus--2 story-- in the very front, watching the early evening "500 Days of Summer" train scene warm sun wash over the changing landscape. We passed the Argentinian flag and I thought how beautiful, peaceful, and happy it looks, and then immediately thought about how that must be at least partially a lie. There's always trouble beneath a seemingly beautiful, still surface. But then I thought--what a terrible way to live life. It's got to be possible to strike some balance between understanding the multiple and oftentimes upsetting dimensions of life and really just purely enjoying it. To be both blissfully happy, to bask in the gloriousness of life, and to address and never forget the crazy shit that takes place. (It's like I decided a year or so ago-- there is a vast difference between joyfulness and carefreeness; one signifies the ultimate presence, the other the ultimate absence.) I've got to step beyond the cushyness of this lifestyle I've just been presented with. It took me some time, but it was when I started living a real life in New York and moving outside the cushy that I really fell in love with the City. It's the spirit and the consciousness and the love and the knowledge of the people being most fucked over by the city that made me realize how alive of a place it is. (I recognize the problems with glamorizing or fetishizing struggle, but that´s for another post.)
Classes start tomorrow-- Mondays and Wednesdays I have a 9-5 of classes all in Spanish. We shall see how I hold up!
I might not be on the right side of the ocean, but it's definitely not wrong. I love you all!
Til soon,
L
Happy Valentine's Day--or el dia de los enamorados! It hasn't felt like Valentine's Day here to me much, which is nice, because in the past I have always been acutely aware of this day, and usually in a negative way. Today, instead of going out with my girlfriends and talking about how much we love each other and how maybe next year we'll be with someone on Valentine's Day, a small group of us went to Buenos Aires's Chinatown/Barrio Chino for the Chinese New Year celebrations. It turned out to be much smaller than we thought and pretty anticlimactic because we couldn't even eat at a Chinese restaurant because the lines were atrocious. But the sun was out, the wind was blowing, and despite my hunger and semi-bitchiness due to the hunger, I felt totally happy. We left Chinatown and headed to Palermo (the neighborhood I live in) for a late lunch and browsing through the outdoor market.
Let me back up a minute: Tonight marks one week since I boarded a plane for Buenos Aires from New York. I left the snow behind and landed in 88 degrees (sorry to all my NYC amigos reading this... I know gloating is mean!). After a long day of waiting around in the NYU academic center, getting fed, mingling with other NYU students, and checking in, we were bussed to our dorm. The pictures online of my residence hall look teeny tiny, and I had been told that Master (the dorm I live in) has bite-sized rooms, so you can imagine my shock when I walked into a room with floor to ceiling windows that open onto a balcony overlooking the corner of calles Paraguay and Uriarte. Perfect post-up spot for people-watching! My roommate is wonderful, which I already knew she would be; we have tons and tons of mutual friends in New York and it's a mystery to me how we haven't been friends til now. We have super high ceilings because we're on the top floor, our own bathroom, and plentiful closet space. The dorm has two parts, and across the street is where most of the boys in Master live and the cafeteria where a few of the nicest women I've met here work is across the street as well.
Everybody told me how white people from Buenos Aires are, but I am still in shock by just how white this city is. Not for the whiteness reason but not unrelated, this city feels like an American city, only everyone speaks Spanish instead of English. I'm learning how intensely impacted my experience as a tourist and learner is based on my perceived origins. My perception of a country like Nicaragua, for example, can never be the same as my perception of a country like Argentina, for the simple fact that I am able to blend in here, where there I can not. Being a noticeable foreigner inevitably alters the dynamics around me, sends ripples through a coffeeshop, alters the way that people speak (or choose not to speak) to me. Once I open my mouth all that goes out the door, of course, but being physically able to "pass" as a native here is definitely feeding into my perceptions of the city. (I love it so far.)
A professor here gave a lecture about a Cortazar short story during our orientation, and she quoted an old Scandinavian saying: "Once you cross the ocean, you're never on the right side." I loved it. I immediately wrote it down, as it fits right into my obsession and tenuous relationship with wanderlust. She spoke of codes and reading and understanding the code of the new space and having to start translating yourself at the same time. I keep thinking about how Sr. Puente, my middle school Spanish teacher, thinks that people take on different personalities/characters in each language they speak. If I'm different, I like to think it's only because of lack of ability to sufficiently express my usual personality. Like the other night, I asked the boys from NYU some question about "Do you ever wonder if/about..." and realized I ask questions like that all the time... but not in Spanish. That's not in my Spanish comfort zone yet, and so that piece of myself falls away when I turn to Spanish. Then again, aren't we supposed to be 80% speakers of body language? I like to think that my true self comes through, despite language barriers.
I wrote the above paragraph as I heard her speak. I carry my journal with me everywhere because I never know when something will inspire me to write. As I finished the paragraph, she spoke of the popular phrase "tradutorre, traditore," or "translator, traitor." I must pay attention to making sure that I don't betray myself in the process of translating myself.
Friday we went to Tigre, a delta river area about an hour from Buenos Aires proper. Of course my journal was in tow, and here are my thoughts from the busride home:
Nothing is ever so simple. Or isn't it? I'm sitting on a bus--2 story-- in the very front, watching the early evening "500 Days of Summer" train scene warm sun wash over the changing landscape. We passed the Argentinian flag and I thought how beautiful, peaceful, and happy it looks, and then immediately thought about how that must be at least partially a lie. There's always trouble beneath a seemingly beautiful, still surface. But then I thought--what a terrible way to live life. It's got to be possible to strike some balance between understanding the multiple and oftentimes upsetting dimensions of life and really just purely enjoying it. To be both blissfully happy, to bask in the gloriousness of life, and to address and never forget the crazy shit that takes place. (It's like I decided a year or so ago-- there is a vast difference between joyfulness and carefreeness; one signifies the ultimate presence, the other the ultimate absence.) I've got to step beyond the cushyness of this lifestyle I've just been presented with. It took me some time, but it was when I started living a real life in New York and moving outside the cushy that I really fell in love with the City. It's the spirit and the consciousness and the love and the knowledge of the people being most fucked over by the city that made me realize how alive of a place it is. (I recognize the problems with glamorizing or fetishizing struggle, but that´s for another post.)
Classes start tomorrow-- Mondays and Wednesdays I have a 9-5 of classes all in Spanish. We shall see how I hold up!
I might not be on the right side of the ocean, but it's definitely not wrong. I love you all!
Til soon,
L
Sunday, February 7, 2010
On to another one
I meant to blog while I was in Oaxaca, Mexico, or to post my journal entries after the fact, like I did for Israel/Palestine, but it didn't happen and my thoughts are too focused on Buenos Aires and New York City and my beautiful friends who trekked out in the frigid cold last night to kick it with me while I packed til 3 am....
Perhaps I will blog later about Oaxaca. Let me just say that it was an amazing experience, and I am not avoiding writing on it because it was too insignificant; rather, it was too epic. To be honest, I don't think I've processed it yet.
I am on to another one. I leave tonight for Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I will be studying Spanish and living for four months. My mom is here and has been here for the past three days, which puts my mind at ease and makes it easier to go abroad. Not that I see her much these days, but I will spend this coming summer in New York (21, summertime, and the city?!), so the homesickness is mediated by her presence here in my apartment.
As much as I love NYC, I think that I've been in a funk. I feel my light diminishing. It will be good for me to spend some time away, drinking in the world and maybe finding a bit more of myself, so that I can exist again in this amazing, bustling city and hold onto me.
I have two confessions to make. Confession #1: I am terrified that my Spanish is not good enough for me to succeed in all my classes in Spanish, and just to live in a Spanish-speaking country. Oaxaca should've taught me that I'll be fine, since I was doing pretty well with communicating with everyone. I like to say that I understand fluently, but when I'm sitting in a literary analysis class in Spanish, will that hold true? Confession #2: Secretly, part of me doesn't want to go. I love my friends here and my life here and some of my friends keep shaking their heads at me and telling me that I move around too much, I don't know how to sit still, etc. (If you're a Lilly's-blog-reader, you know that all of this began with my friend's comment this summer about me not knowing how to stay in one place. Remember that? Well, our entire circle of friends picked up that notion, and they love to give me shit for it all the time.) Anyhow, I know that if I stayed, I would always wonder what studying abroad would've been like, and a part of me would always regret staying. I know that despite what my experience is like I will not regret making the decision to go abroad... but it's still hard to say goodbye so often. Like Jo said last night as we hugged goodbye at 3 in the morning, though: this is not goodbye, it's just a "see you later."
See you later! Stay tuned... I'll be posting regularly from Baires.
In love, admiration, and solidarity,
L
Perhaps I will blog later about Oaxaca. Let me just say that it was an amazing experience, and I am not avoiding writing on it because it was too insignificant; rather, it was too epic. To be honest, I don't think I've processed it yet.
I am on to another one. I leave tonight for Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I will be studying Spanish and living for four months. My mom is here and has been here for the past three days, which puts my mind at ease and makes it easier to go abroad. Not that I see her much these days, but I will spend this coming summer in New York (21, summertime, and the city?!), so the homesickness is mediated by her presence here in my apartment.
As much as I love NYC, I think that I've been in a funk. I feel my light diminishing. It will be good for me to spend some time away, drinking in the world and maybe finding a bit more of myself, so that I can exist again in this amazing, bustling city and hold onto me.
I have two confessions to make. Confession #1: I am terrified that my Spanish is not good enough for me to succeed in all my classes in Spanish, and just to live in a Spanish-speaking country. Oaxaca should've taught me that I'll be fine, since I was doing pretty well with communicating with everyone. I like to say that I understand fluently, but when I'm sitting in a literary analysis class in Spanish, will that hold true? Confession #2: Secretly, part of me doesn't want to go. I love my friends here and my life here and some of my friends keep shaking their heads at me and telling me that I move around too much, I don't know how to sit still, etc. (If you're a Lilly's-blog-reader, you know that all of this began with my friend's comment this summer about me not knowing how to stay in one place. Remember that? Well, our entire circle of friends picked up that notion, and they love to give me shit for it all the time.) Anyhow, I know that if I stayed, I would always wonder what studying abroad would've been like, and a part of me would always regret staying. I know that despite what my experience is like I will not regret making the decision to go abroad... but it's still hard to say goodbye so often. Like Jo said last night as we hugged goodbye at 3 in the morning, though: this is not goodbye, it's just a "see you later."
See you later! Stay tuned... I'll be posting regularly from Baires.
In love, admiration, and solidarity,
L
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